24 hours after the Hearthstone design team revealed their first set of nerfs in the Year of the Dragon card rotation, a blog post was shared that revealed details for an upcoming in-game event. Starting on June 3, players will be able to log in and receive a new free golden Legendary minion, SN1P-SN4P, play with 18 cards that were buffed and experience the next Arena draft rotation as part of the "Mech-vitational" event.

▲ SN1P-SN4P will be free to all players who log in between June 3 and July 1.

18 new ways to play

For the first time in Hearthstone's history, the design team opted to buff existing cards in the game opposed to strictly nerfing them. Each class received two cards from the Boomsday Project expansion that saw buffs.

According to the development team:

"We think all the cards we chose can lead to fun and interesting experiences, and our aim for these changes is to encourage you to think differently about how you’re currently building decks. We’re hoping that some of these cards will see consistent play in the current rotation, and even inspire completely new decks without having a lasting negative impact on their respective classes. If the goal of a balance update is to address metagame outliers, then the goal of something like the Rise of the Mech update is to inspire some fun, new ideas. We look forward to hearing your feedback!"

The 18 newly buffed cards:

▲ Images courtesy of Hearthpwn.

Updated Arena

For those who prefer to play Hearthstone's draft mode, Arena, the development team revealed the next set of cards that will be rotated into the Arena card pool to keep the playing experience fresh and dynamic.